A Homeschooling Mother's Journey Through The Craziness

Category Archives: yummy!

My aunt made this for me once and I remember it being AMAZING. She used a different crust and made it exactly to the recipe. But I tend to play with recipes to fit them to the ingredients we have, so I’m going to post the version I made last night. It was still really good (not as good as the Chicken Caesar Pizza from the other day lol), but not what I remembered. I’ll have to do it “right” the next time :-P. Anyway….my version!

You need:

1 refridgerated pizza crust (or make your own)

1 1/2 cups of bacon pieces

Chicken (I used 6 chicken breast tenderloins, but you can use more/less as you want)

1 TB minced garlic

4 cups of fresh baby spinach (I would double this to 8 like the original recipe says the next time)

1 cup of Alfredo sauce

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 cups of mozzarella cheese

To make:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Spread your pizza crust into a pan (I used a bar stone from Pampered Chef. I *heart* my stones!) and then cook for 10-12 minutes. Don’t do like me and over-cook it. Remember that it will have to go back into the oven for about 10 more minutes once the toppings are on!

(see? over-cooked. Still turned out tasty, but I bet it would be better if I had paid attention)

Put your spinach and garlic in a bowl. Cover and microwave for 2-3 minutes (until the spinach is wilted). Press the spinach into the side of the bowl using a spatula and watch the water run! Blot all of that up with a paper towel.

(eww, yuck! Spinach juices!)

While your spinach is cooking, put some chicken in a pan and cook it. I just put mine in a skillet, salt/pepper it/cover it and let it cook on medium heat. No extra oil or anything. Just remember to flip it! Usually, 3 minutes or so a side is enough.

Once it’s cooked, chop it up so it’s nice and fine.

Combine the Alfredo sauce, bacon, black pepper, and 1/2 of the chicken in a bowl and mix it up. This is the sauce for the pizza (if you didn’t already figure that out!)

To put it all together, spread the sauce to the edges of the crust. Top with about half of the cheese, add the spinach, top with the rest of the bacon and chicken. Finish with the rest of the cheese.

My aunt has been a Pampered Chef consultant (is that right?) for so many years it’s ridiculous. Sadly, she’s pretty much stopped having parties, which means that my “in” for cheap products is drying up. Bummer! But I have a majorly stocked kitchen and WAY more recipes than I will EVER use (and yet, I’m always getting more ideas off of Pinterest. It’s an addiction!).

Dave and I love chicken caesar salads, so when I saw this, I had to try it out. Now, I used refridgerated pizza dough, store bought salad dressing, and pre-shredded parmesean cheese. If you want to be super duper, you can make your own pizza crust (I’ll probably do this next time to be completely honest!), make your own dressing, and shred your cheese. Or you can just be lazy like me. Again, SO not Suzy Homemaker!

So first things first….you preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Spread your dough out on your pizza stone (umm, you could probably using a baking sheet in a pinch, but if you make pizzas often….GET A STONE) and then cook for about 15 minutes. I started with 12, but ended up at about 20 minutes because the dough needs to be browning before you take it out.

(Pre-cooked crust)

While that’s cooking, procede on. Mix 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, 1/2 Caesar dressing, 1 tsp lemon pepper seasoning, and 1 pressed garlic clove (or you can be lazy like me once again and use 1/2 tsp of minced garlic) in 1 bowl.

In a 2nd bowl, mix 8 ounces (1 package) of cream cheese (softened) with half of the mixture from above. Chop up about 6 ounces of cooked chicken breasts (I used about 4 chicken breast tenderloins for this) and mix it in.

If you need to, chop up your romain lettuce (again, laziness and Sam’s Club means I had bagged romaine in our fridge, so that’s what I used) and put it in yet another bowl (yeah, SO not 1 pot cooking, but worth it!) Chop up a red pepper (you need 1/2 cup) and dump on top of the lettuce. Mix it all together with the rest of the dressing mix (and add a little more dressing if you’re like me {again! You copy cat!} and like a little lettuce with your dressing).

Once your crust is done, spread the cream cheese mixture on top. Then top with the lettuce mixture, some more cooked chicken breast (I used 3 chicken breast tenderloins, chopped), and a little more parmesan cheese.

And then, the fun part! EAT! So stinking yummy!

Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza via Pampered Chef

Ingredients:

Pizza crust

1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese

1/2 cup caesar dressing

1 tsp lemon pepper seasonings

1 garlic clove

1 package of cream cheese

about 12 ounces of cooked chicken breast

4 cups of sliced romaine lettuce

1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped

(optional: 1 can of pitted ripe olives, sliced – add in with the lettuce mixture)

2. Mix 1/4 cup of your parmesan cheese, the salad dressing, lemon pepper, and garlic together in one bowl.

3. Mix the cream cheese, 1/2 of the dressing mixture, and 1/2 of the chicken (chopped) in another bowl.

4. Mix the lettuce, bell peppers, and the rest of the dressing mixture together (and olives if you want them).

5. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the pizza crust, top with the salad mixture. Add rest of chicken to top (either slice or chop the rest of the chicken), then sprinkle the rest of the parmesan cheese on top. Cut with a pizza cutter and serve.

I am not Suzy Homemaker by any stretch of the imagination. But I’ve been trying to offer my children a better variety of healthy foods, so when I saw a recipe for homemade applesauce that looked incredibly easy, I had to give it a try. My kids eat a massive amount of applesauce, so while it may be cheaper to buy the bulk stuff at Sam’s Club, I like the idea of knowing exactly what is in it and really just making it as healthy as possible.

So yummy!

So here’s just how easy it is:

Peel and core apples (I used 8 in this batch, but just made a batch the other day with about 20 because this didn’t even last the weekend!). You can mix different varieties for different tastes.

Put them in the crockpot.

I then add a little brown sugar or agave to sweeten it a little (I prefer agave and usually just a couple tablespoons is enough. Just depends on how sweet you want it!).

Some lemon extract (you can also use a strip of lemon peel, but I don’t personally like to)

1 cinnamon stick

Cook on low for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

When done cooking, take out the cinnamon stick and then either mash it with a potatoe masher or blend it with an immersion blender (I don’t have one, which is why I mash).